Human Rights Standards

The Education (Admissions to Schools) Bill has now passed in the Dail. From September the vast majority of schools will no longer be able to discriminate in entry on the grounds of religion. However, minority religious schools can still continue to discriminate as they still have exemptions from equality laws. ...

In this Republic successive governments have put the rights of religious bodies over the rights of children and their parents. It seems at this stage that nothing is going to change, as this government will not give support to Solidarity’s Objective Sex Education Bill. This is not just about the ...

Atheist Ireland, the Evangelical Alliance of Ireland, and the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community of Ireland, welcome part and reject part of the Schools Admissions Bill passed by the Dail yesterday. Despite our different world views, we campaign together for a State-funded secular education system that respects equally everybody’s constitutional and human ...

In a recent article by Emma O’Kelly from RTE, Fr Paul Connell has said that the recent directive to ETB secondary schools, issued by the Department, has mistakenly equated religious education with religious instruction. Fr. Connell, who is the head of the organisation representing religious-run secondary schools, also said that while the directive did ...

In an article in the Irish Times on the 11th March Dr. Sandra Cullen, Director of the Mater Dei's Irish Centre for Religious Education at DCU’s Institute of Education, suggests that “It’s time to talk about Religious Education.” Atheist Ireland has written to the Mater Dei/DCU seeking a meeting to ...

The new Directive from the Department of Education gives practical application to the Constitutional right to opt out of religion. Parents can opt out their children from Religious education/instruction and worship in all publicly funded schools. One of the main aims of the State Religious Education course at second level ...

Atheist Ireland, the Evangelical Alliance of Ireland, and the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community of Ireland, have made the following joint submission to Irish State's review process of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of Religious Discrimination. We are focusing on the intersectionality of religious and racial discrimination in the Irish ...

Education & Training Boards schools and colleges are presented as the alternative to denominational schools in Ireland. The ETB sector is in competition with Educate Together for the patronage of new second level schools. But Atheist Ireland has discovered that many ETB schools have a Christian and Catholic ethos and ...

In a speech last week to a conference on Catholic education, Archbishop Eamon Martin said that Catholic schools remain 'vital centres for evangelisation and catechesis'. Atheist Ireland has for years been pointing out this damning fact: that our publicly funded school system is part of the evangelising mission of the ...

Atheist Ireland has written to the Minister for Education seeking an input into the new guidelines that he has committed to issuing for children opting out of religion classes in State-run ETB schools. The Minister was responding to questions by RTE's Emma O'Kelly about documents that Atheist Ireland obtained under ...

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